Wash Away the Sins
by Bob J Montonelli
Summary: Sequel of sorts to the Dark City slash. Murdoch and Schreber visit Shell Beach. Aww.


We all knew that if no one else wrote a Dark City fic, something drastic would have to happen. Well, now it has. I've gone and written a happy fic. Go on, writhe.   
  
  
  
  
It was bright. Terribly bright. For a few moments, this was all Schreber knew. So much light. He was used to working in dim offices and the dimmer labs of the strangers. He squinted, nearly blind in the white-gold light. Murdoch's hand rested on his upper arm, and his voice rumbled softly.   
"Bright, huh?"  
"Yes."  
"You'll get used to it. Come on."   
The road was hot, dry asphalt, winding down the broad peninsula, between cheerful little clapboard houses with well-kept gardens and happy children. Murdoch was like a child, eager to show Schreber his vision--his creation--of Shell Beach. He knew the other man would enjoy it, the warmth and light and safety of it. No darkness, and no strangers. No one to shy from his limp and the ghastly scars along his torso. Murdoch was not afraid of the scars--he sympathized with the pain and shame of his lover. He had touched the twisted flesh, kissed it, held Schreber--Daniel, he reminded himself--close through the night.   
Schreber was looking up more, now. Peering out at the rolling dunes in the distance, and the twinkling liquid sapphire of the sea.  
//His eyes//, Murdoch thought suddenly, //his eyes are like the sea. So blue.// He smiled. Daniel peered at him.   
"What?"  
"Nothing, just...I was thinking that your eyes look like the sea. All blue."  
Blushing, looking at the ground. "Thank you."   
How long? Two weeks. Right. Two weeks since the rainy, dismal night when Anna had broken up with him and he'd gone, rounding streets by memory--memory. silly thing.--and coming to the last place he expected. Coming to Schreber, source of the answers, of memories not his and still his, source of pleasure and pain and loss and gain. Loving Daniel, the good and gentle soul, and being the giver of answers this time. Am I beautiful? Am I loved? Can you help me?  
//We had the same questions,// Murdoch realized, //but couldn't find the one who knew the answers.//   
They had come to the beach, the thick sand gone white in the sun, the water nibbling playfully at the shore; dancing up, pouncing, spitting foam as it laughed backward again.   
"Welcome to Shell Beach." He laughed.  
And Schreber smiled, a broad, if crooked, grin; eyes full of maleable, unidentifiable emotion.   
They sat, above the line of the tide, sleeves rolled up and eyes squinting against the sun. John could just make out the rumpled pads of scar tissue on Schreber's upper arm. Scars he, Murdoch, should've had, but which ended up on Daniel instead. Had the strangers needed that pain, or did they just want him to obey?   
No. The strangers were dead and gone, they didn't matter. Daniel mattered. His lover mattered.   
"So do you like it?"  
The psychologist leaned back, arms behind his head, surprisingly relaxed. "Yes, John. Very much. It is beautiful." A short laugh. "They should not have chosen you as a murderer, my friend, but an artist. Your work...defies imagination. Defies words."  
"You're so damned eloquent." //You make me feel important, Daniel.// Playful chuckling. "Don't you ever speak English?"  
"No. Too hard."  
//Oh, but he *does* have a sense of humor. Open it up more often, please!// He kissed his lover on impulse, lips to cheek in a surgical strike. Whispers in the shell of an ear, lying on the shell-pocked sand of shell beach. "You're so beautiful."  
"Ah," Schreber murmured, "but the books are wrong. This is not abomination. This is the most natural thing in the world."   
Murdoch wasn't exactly sure what Schreber was saying, but evidently it was a compliment, or at the very least not *bad*, so he smiled.   
But Daniel--clever, observant, occassionally devious Daniel--saw the glimmer of confusion in his eyes, and explained. "The books, the ones the strangers took from--wherever--all declare that loving one's own sex is abomination and unnatural." At Murdoch's stricken, fish-eyed look, he continued. "Obviously, they are wrong."  
"Obviously." Kiss to the lips this time. Murdoch was a man who reacted from the heart, with intense devotion and genuine emotion. 


End file.
